The American Power Boat Association Gold Cup is the ultimate prize in powerboat racing and the oldest trophy in motorsports. The wooden-hulled boats from 114 years ago evolved into three-point, prop-riding hydroplanes in the 1950s, and in the mid-80s, World War II Allison and Rolls Royce piston engines were replaced with a turbine, the Lycoming T-55 used on Chinook helicopters. Hull designs with rear engine placement, large wings, and a closed cockpit have stabilized, so boats built in the last three decades look generally similar.
DA International has provided promotional products to the H1 Unlimited hydroplane teams for years. Owner Dave Vaillancourt’s love of the sport inspired him to develop a hydroplane kit that would raise awareness of it and promote model building as a hobby. The resulting 1/25 scale hydroplane kits are intentionally simplified for easier assembly by less experienced modelers. They are available through the Hydroplane and Raceboat Museum in Kent, Washington (hydromuseumstore.org). Production runs are limited, but DA International plans to do a new run of kits every year with decal sheets for that year’s hydroplane teams.
Mercurys Coffee Company is a new sponsor for the 2024 season, with veteran driver Jamie Nilsen at the wheel. I chose to build my model as Miss Mercurys Coffee because the striking graphics are on a white background, the color of the bare kit plastic. In the spirit of building the kit as DA International intended, I suppressed my contest modeler urges and built the kit as a novice would: No spray paint, airbrushing, or even masking, and I did not fill in ejector pin marks. The model is supposed to be a quick, fun build, so that’s how I did it.
The plastic is firm, and sands and trims well with a hobby knife, and the hull surfaces are a nice glossy white, perfect for my no-paint approach. Typical modeling solvent cements, such as Tamiya and Testors, did not create strong plastic welds, but the model held together fine. I used superglue for extra strength where the vertical stabilizers attach to the wing. The kit includes a sturdy, crystal-clear, laser-cut acrylic plastic display base and an electronic sound card, speaker, and switch for audio effects, as well as acrylic paint, brushes, and a small tube of glue.
Part numbers are not molded into the trees, but the trees are bagged and labeled with letters. The first page of the instructions includes a diagram of the part trees, giving a number for each piece, and that letter-number reference is used in the assembly illustrations.
The hull halves snap together with a minimal gap around the perimeter, but glue and clamps minimized gaps at the front canard wing and cockpit spar. The driver scales out to about 1/43 scale, so a 1/25 scale driver would be a good upgrade when I build a second kit.
The Step 3 illustration shows the relationship of the engine, driveshafts, and gearbox, and those are assembled into the hull in Step 4. I left off the exhaust nozzle cover (Part C8) because the photo on the box does not show this part on Miss Mercurys Coffee.
The kit paints did not include a match for the red-orange on the decals, so I mixed my own with Testors enamels and brush-painted parts of the front canard, rear wing, fairings, and cowl. The exhaust heat shield, cockpit, and fairings were painted with the kit’s semigloss black, the engine red-orange, black, silver, and gold, and the exhaust nozzle with Tamiya Chrome Silver. I painted the top of the canopy gloss white to represent the cockpit hatch.
The decals are strong and respond well to setting solution and a hairdryer. The black stripes on the hull are 14 inches long, and I may have used too much solvent, resulting in a few small wrinkles. Instead, cut the long decals to make them more manageable and take it easy on the setting solution.
Leave the turning fin, rudder, and propeller shaft loose until the end of the build because you’ll want the model on a flat, stable surface to install the wing and its vertical fairings. I removed material from the locating pins on the wing strut mount (Part B3) so that it could move to compensate for the strut length and attachment to the fairings during installation.
The base includes a sound card, speaker, and switch for sound effects. No instructions for installing the parts are given, but it is self-explanatory based on the placement of the holes in the base. I recommend putting all the sound components on Part F3 but don’t glue the display base together for easy breakdown and transport.
DA International’s Unlimited Hydroplane plastic boat kit is great! It’s big, excellent value, and an exciting subject. Though the kit is simplified for a fun, quick build, the potential is there for a truly unique contest-quality entry, and the team markings yield a handsome model.